Springfield AMICCON conference creating business before it happens

The Republican photo by John SuchockiPeter Ellis is the creative director and co-owner of DIF Design of Springfield. The company created the website and logo for the AMICCON show, and has already gotten some new business from it.

DIF, a six-year-old website, graphic design and marketing company in downtown Springfield, did AMICCON’s website and logo and co-owner Peter S. Ellis is on AMICCON’s board. Ellis didn’t want to disclose the specific names of companies, but he said once he got involved with AMICCON, a Chicopee manufacturer that focuses on defense work approached DIF Designs about its website.

“They’d been looking for a company to do a website and they didn’t know we existed,” Ellis said. “And we didn’t know they existed so we had no way of letting them know what we can do.”

Later, DIF got a contract from a Berkshire County manufacturer of clean-energy projects, also though AMICCON. That company was also in the market for a snazzy new Web presence and found Ellis’s company through AMICCON.

A third company, this one in Holyoke, committed to exhibit at AMICCON then reached out to DIF for help designing signs and handouts for that exhibit.

“AMICCON is doing its work,” Ellis, who now has six employees, said. “Keep the money in the region. It’s great.”

AMICCON - or Advanced Manufacturing and Innovation Competition & Conference - is a group of manufacturers in precision machining, plastics, paper, packaging, electronics, clean and green energy and medical devices and companies that serve those manufacturers.

The idea is to help foster the local economy by getting manufacturers to look locally for services and subcontractors and help larger companies, called OEMs or original equipment manufacturers, based in New England looking locally for suppliers.

Ellen Bemben, AMICCON’s co-founder, said she’s already lined up 60 exhibitors for Tuesday’s convention and she estimates that there will be a crowd of about 400 to 500 people. From 8 a.m. to noon the floor is open only to manufacturers. Then from noon to 4 p.m., it is open to anyone.

“The manufacturers are so excited that they have their own forum,” Bemben said. “The service providers can come in after we’ve had a half a day to ourselves.”

Robert W. Hyers, an associate professor of mechanical engineering at the University of Massachusetts at Amherst, expects 50 of the 100 students in his manufacturing class to attend. They’ll have resumes in hand, eager to pick up internships and jobs.

“Most of our students are from Massachusetts but they are happy to work anywhere where there are good jobs,” Hyers said. “At the very least they will learn something about professional networking in manufacturing and maybe they will get a deeper relationship.”

Bemben said older job seekers will likely attend the event as well.

“The manufacturers are not complaining because a lot of times they are hiring but they are not advertising,” she said. “This is a great opportunity for them to meet qualified job candidates.”

UMass Lowell and Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute in Troy, N.Y., also will have people at AMICCON, Bemben said. RPI will have a robot display.